


Respire

by MelliaBee



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Chemical Weapons, F/M, Handwavy Science and Medicine, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Poison Gas, The Author Spent Way Too Much Time Researching, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-01-12 23:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21234530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelliaBee/pseuds/MelliaBee
Summary: The year is 1944, and Hydra is targeting Captain America with a weapon designed specifically to kill him. As Steve Rogers fights for his life, Peggy, Bucky, and Howard race the clock to find a solution. Darker than some of my other work, this features semi-graphic blood and injuries.





	1. Chapter 1

**Respire**

* * *

"_Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world; … this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations."_

Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. Signed at Geneva, June 17, 1925

* * *

Gas.

It was the instrument of horror, both physical and mental, to thousands upon thousands during the Great War. Soldiers, civilians, and animals alike suffered in the most grotesque and painful ways imaginable as the invisible weapon ate out their eyes, their skin, their throat and lungs. Dying men, women and children clawed at their faces and chests, straining to breathe, tears streaming from blinded eyes.

At the end of it all, sixty-five states signed what would become known as the Geneva Protocol, prohibiting the use of poisonous gas in war for all time.

"Never again," people said, white-lipped and resolute. "Never again."

Then the Second World War began.

On the face of it, the nations kept their word - but that didn't stop terror from gnawing at every man's heart. Improved gas masks were part of each soldier's gear, drills tested reaction time, and deceptively cheerful signs taught people what to look out for.

_Lewisite smells like geraniums. Mustard gas smells like garlic. Phosgene smells like musty hay. Nasal irritant - skin burns - vomit - death. _

"Hitler won't give you warning," the soldiers reminded each other, and slept with their masks close to hand, the memory of their dead or crippled fathers and uncles and grandfathers a haunting reminder.

* * *

"Captain?"

There was definite amusement in Peggy's voice, but by the time Steve Rogers tipped back his head to peer up at her through the slightly smudged lenses over his eyes, she had managed to tuck it all back. Only the slight twitch at the corners of her mouth gave her away.

"Agent Carter," he replied, voice muffled through the ventilator. "Can I do anything for you?" He tried to rise, but she waved him back down to his seat.

"What on earth," she asked slowly, hands planted on her hips, "are you doing?"

Steve looked down at the large bowl balanced on his knees, and then back up to her face. "Field test," he promptly answered. "Howard sent out these new gas masks - figured I'd give them a try, see how they hold up under conditions here at the front."

Peggy's mouth did curl up then, although she forced it back into submission with admirable adeptness.

"Steve - you're peeling onions."

Bowing his head, Steve grasped the ventilator pipe and tugged upward, pulling the gas mask off to reveal his red, shining face, covered in perspiration from being sealed under the heavy rubber. His hair stuck up, rumpled from the elastic straps, but he was smiling. "Works like a charm," he told her with a cheerful nod toward the bowl of sliced onions in his lap. "Couldn't smell a thing besides rubber."

"Wish I'd had one of those back in New York." Bucky's voice startled them both, and a teasing grin flickered across his face as Steve very nearly dropped the mask in his hasty snatch at the bowl of onions to keep them from sliding off his lap. "Might've come in handy, all those times my sister made me peel the onions because she said they made her cry."

Steve nodded. The equilibrium of the bowl regained, he busied himself putting the mask away into its carrying pouch. "Sure would," he agreed. "Though every kid on the block woulda fought you for it."

"If you're quite done reminiscing," Peggy Carter cut in. Not that she wasn't enjoying the glimpse into their past, but she had a message to deliver and lately Colonel Phillips had been getting a disconcertingly knowing look in his eye every time he sent her to talk to the captain. "We've one last mission briefing for your team."

At once, the captain was all business. "Be right there," he promised. "Buck, can you finish peeling these up for dinner?"

Bucky opened his mouth to refuse, but was promptly rewarded with the bowl of onions shoved into his resisting arms.

"Hey!" he protested. Already several steps away, Steve paused and whirled on his heel.

"Oh, you'll want this," he called back, tossing the gas mask in it's carrying pouch to his friend. The onions nearly met the ground a second time as Bucky frantically juggled the bowl in his attempt to catch the mask.

"Rogers!" he roared, half-exasperated.

Steve's shoulders shook in silent laughter as he jogged ahead to catch up with Agent Carter. She aimed a sidelong glance at his face as he fell into step beside her.

"You know he'll make you pay for that," she pointed out, jerking her chin over her shoulder to indicate the audibly grumbling sergeant.

Steve grinned. "I know."

* * *

Light-hearted banter aside, the mission they were on was actually very serious. Word had reached the SSR some weeks before of an old scientist - a friend of Dr. Erskine - who was in dire straits. Like the good doctor, this man had been forcibly 'recruited' by the Nazi science division. Unlike Dr. Erskine, he had been unable to escape.

"_Please_," his message had begged, carefully smuggled out of the Hydra stronghold by a French resistance worker. "_Please, I cannot hold out much longer. They are making me do things - terrible things. I ask for sanctuary from any country into whose hands this may fall. For God's sake, please help me._"

The plea was almost certainly genuine. The information that had come along with the message - _that_ was more dubious.

"Whole thing smells like a setup," Colonel Phillips had growled when he first got the packet, and Peggy had agreed with him. The resistance worker had found blueprints, detailed plans of the stronghold, a guard change schedule. The whole thing was just a tiny bit too clean, too complete.

Even so, they couldn't leave the man there. He'd appealed for sanctuary, and the United States was thirsty for any scientist willing to defect. Besides, if he really was being forced to make things for the enemy, it was better to get him out of their hands.

"So we're going, then?" Steve had asked.

"Oh, we're going." Colonel Phillips swept the papers into a stack, tapping the edge against the table. "Order came through an hour ago. Men up top too intrigued by the idea of getting another Erskine to worry about it being a trap."

"But if it is a setup after all?"

Colonel Phillips raised a craggy eyebrow and then shrugged. "I'm sure it is," he agreed. He stabbed a finger at the guard schedule. "There's an obvious window in three weeks. If they're expecting us, it'll be then."

Peggy had looked up sharply, but Steve spoke first.

"Let me guess - we won't be using that window?"

The colonel slapped the papers into a folder, and then stood. "Pack your gear," he told them both, nodding shortly. "They're expecting us in three weeks - so let's get there in two."

* * *

They had made it in two weeks - Colonel Phillips, the Howling Commandos, and an elite squad prepped to accompany the Commandos on missions larger than the team could handle on its own. Stark couldn't come, preoccupied with the categorization of some recent modifications found in a captured Nazi airplane engine, but he'd sent Peggy along with a bunch of new "toys" for the men to try out.

"Tell me how they work" he'd urged her, dropping the last box of new gas masks into her arms. "I'm trying something new with them, and I want to know how it goes."

"I will," she had promised. Now, tramping through the gathering dusk with Steve Rogers by her side, she wondered how Stark would react when he found out how the boys had been using his new masks.

"You smell like onions," Colonel Phillips commented when they reached his tent. He finished the line he was writing and then looked up, capping his fountain pen. "Been trying out those masks of Stark's?"

Steve nodded. "Works great, seems to fit well. I'd like the men to run a drill with them tonight so they can carry them tomorrow."

"Speaking of tomorrow." Phillips shoved his chair back, gestured for the captain and agent to sit. "Chances are good that they were planning a trap for next week - but there's still a possibility they've heard we were coming early. I want you to be on your guard. There's no telling what they'll try to pull off. If you can't get to where they're holding Müller, then pull back. I'd rather come up with another plan than lose most of my men on a fool's errand."

"Understood," said Steve firmly. "We'll keep our eyes peeled."

* * *

The plan was simple.

Early the next morning, Captain Rogers was to split off from the group with his Commandos and half of the elite squad, led by Lieutenant Warren. He and his men would hike down and infiltrate the building, rescue the scientist, and get out as fast as they could. The rest of the squad would go with Colonel Phillips and Agent Carter to cover the main road, take out the expected transport trucks that were due to roll through, and ensure the captain didn't get any unwelcome company.

"We'll rendezvous at point B," Peggy briskly reminded the captain for the eighth time, keeping exactly one half step ahead of him as she wove expertly through the disbanding camp. Steve knew she was disappointed not to be assigned to the rescuing team, but she was doing an excellent job keeping her game face on.

"We'll be there," he promised. "Late tomorrow or early the next day, but we'll be there." He shifted the shield on his arm, hefted the pack on his back, automatically checked his gear to make sure he had everything. Then he took a longer stride to draw even with her, ducking his head a little to get a better look at her face. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Peggy Carter slowed, lifting her chin to meet his gaze squarely, and Steve was pleased to see the little laughter lines deepen around her eyes, a little of the disappointment fading. "I rather believe that's my line you've got," she informed him archly. "After all, you're the one stepping into the lion's mouth, so to speak."

The breeze caught her stray curls, sending them fluttering around her face, and Steve caught the image and stored it away somewhere deep in his heart. He shifted his feet and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of something to say in response.

Why was it that every time Agent Carter was especially beautiful, all the words seemed to fly right out of his head? Bucky never seemed to have that problem.

Steve Rogers was beginning to think there must be something seriously wrong with himself in that department.

"Yeah," he managed, quite brilliantly, and then cleared his throat and tried again. "Well - see you on the other side?"

Peggy's dimples were most definitely on display by then. "See you on the other side, Captain."

* * *

It _was_ a trap.

They had expected something of the sort, but none of them realized until far too late exactly what kind of trap it was. Either the blueprints had been wrong, or the base had been re-done, because none of the hallways exactly matched. It wasn't enough to call off the mission, but it did keep them the slightest bit off-balance. The base was poorly manned, but those who were there fought fiercely, ducking backwards through the maze of corridors amid bursts of gunfire.

Steve led the invasion of course, bright shield flashing as he deflected bullets and pressed deeper into the heart of the base. Behind him, his men returned fire as they fanned out behind him, briefly examining each room before moving on to the next.

The part of the base where they were supposedly holding Müller was just ahead. Working together like the elite team they were, Steve and his men barreled forward. Steve knocked out the last two gunmen with his shield, sprinted around a corner - and came to a halt, so quickly that the lieutenant behind him ran headlong into his broad back with a startled grunt.

It wasn't a prison.

It was a dead end.

And in the middle of the hallway stood a young enemy soldier, eyes invisible behind reflective lenses, hair spiking up between rubber straps. He shouted something in German, but the ventilator covering his mouth muffled it - and then he clenched his fist and tossed something towards them - something round and metallic, arcing gracefully through the air, releasing a trail of cloudy whiteness in its wake.

The whole world seemed caught in slow motion, as Steve's blood froze in his veins with sudden horror. This whole thing had been a trap, from Müller's letter all the way down to the maze of hallways - all this, just to get them in this hallway now.

Then his training took over.

"GAS!" he roared, and swung his shield, smacking the gas grenade out of its arc towards them. It flew back the way it had come and hit the young Nazi in the side of the head with a solid _thunk_, dropping him instantly, before rolling into a far corner of the hallway and obscuring itself with the poisonous gas that continued to pour out of the tiny nozzle.

Even before it hit the ground, Steve was scrambling for the gas mask at his belt, dragging it on over his head and pressing both sides against his face to make sure it was sealed. It was, and the clean, rubber-tasting air felt like the best thing he'd ever breathed. Behind him, the rest of his men were doing the same, warned by his shout. The air was quickly growing murky - and how had one tiny grenade managed to contain that much gas? There had to be additional canisters somewhere, triggered as part of the trap.

A strangled scream made everybody jump, and Warren suddenly crumpled, convulsing in sheer agony. Steve dropped to his knees at the soldier's side, and immediately saw the problem. Some stray bullet earlier had torn a gaping hole in the thick rubber of the mask's seal, rendering it completely useless.

The captain made an executive decision.

"Out!" he shouted, whipping off his own mask and yanking it over Warren's head, throwing the damaged one aside. This was obviously a trap - there was no sign of the doctor they had come to rescue. He needed to save the people depending on him first. "Bucky, take lead!"

The dim shadows that were his team turned obediently, retreating. He didn't watch them go, focused on sealing his mask against the face of his gurgling, writhing teammate. Then he stooped, lifting the fallen soldier over his shoulder, and staggered to his feet, one arm crooked over his own eyes in an attempt to protect them.

If anybody could survive without a mask, it would be him.

Following the sound of his team's retreat, Steve charged blindly back through the now gas-filled base, taking the shortest breaths that he could. The gas tickled at his exposed skin and inside his lungs, but otherwise didn't seem to have much of an effect. Warren, on the other hand, was a dead weight over his shoulder. He didn't scream again, only twitching faintly - and then even that stopped, leaving him worryingly limp even when Steve misjudged a turn and slammed them both into a wall.

* * *

Steve found his way the last hundred yards by following the sound of Bucky and Dugan arguing. When he finally burst through the doorway, blinking against the too-bright daylight, he saw that Dugan was holding the younger man back bodily from charging into the death trap again. At the sight of the captain, they both relaxed visibly.

"Steve," Bucky gasped, wrenching away from Dugan's slackened grip. "I thought you were right behind us - I thought - what were you _thinking?"_

Steve jerked back to avoid his friend's touch. Bucky had mostly been in front of the gas as it filled the base, but he had been in the thick of it. If the gas had contaminated his clothes… "Clear?" he rasped, and then cleared his throat and tried again. "Clear?"

Bucky dropped his hand, took a shuddering breath through the ventilator of his mask, and then nodded. "Right, yeah. Not here - come on."

They hurried to the edge of the treeline, where the sergeant bent cautiously, getting his head as close to the ground as he could without kneeling. Then he slipped two fingers under the edge of the mask against his face and broke the seal, sniffing shallowly.

"It's clear," he announced, straightening and taking off his mask. Steve immediately dropped to his knees, rolling Warren off his shoulders and onto the ground. The man's limbs flopped heavily, head slumping limply back.

"Oxygen," the captain gasped, fumbling with the mask with suddenly clumsy fingers. Over his head, Bucky hollered, repeating the order, but Steve wasn't listening to him. "Warren," he ordered, pulling the elastic straps forward. "Warr-"

The mask came free then, and Steve's heart sank abruptly. Warren was very clearly dead. Dark liquid poured from his slack mouth, smeared the chalky face, dripped from the inside of the mask. Defeated, Steve sat back on his heels and bowed his head, panting. The death of any one of his men always hit him hard.

When he finally looked up, Bucky was peering at him, concerned.

"You still want the oxygen?"

The captain shook his head. "He's dead," he admitted heavily. Perhaps if he'd moved faster, reacted more quickly, recognized the trap earlier…

"I meant for yourself," said Bucky. His face was strained and sharp. "You're breathing pretty hard - and you didn't have a mask."

Steve blinked up at his friend. It took him a minute to figure out what Bucky was talking about. "Oh. No, I'm okay." He hauled himself to his feet, and looked down for a moment, wishing that he had something to lay over his dead soldier. "I'll need some soap though," he said. "And a new uniform - and a tarp."

* * *

They tossed him the soap, and Bucky came close enough to bring him a bucket of water. Steve still didn't feel much more than a faint tickle on his skin, but if Warren's reaction to it was anything to go by, the stuff was a quick killer to anybody who wasn't a super-soldier. There, under the trees, he bundled Warren's body into a tightly-rolled tarpaulin and then proceeded to strip himself down to the skin and scrub until the bar of soap was gone. Shivering in the light breeze, he used the last of the soapy water to wash down his boots. There was no way to clean his uniform, so he buried it under loose dirt and leaves.

They didn't have decontamination units with them - and if this stuff was anything like mustard gas, he didn't want to pass it on to his team.

"You want us to dig a grave?" asked Bucky, coming up with an armful of random clothing, since the extra Captain America uniform was back with the rest of the company. Steve shook his head, gratefully wrestling the dry clothes onto his damp body.

"No," he decided. "We'll take him back with us. If this is a new weapon, the scientists will want all the knowledge they can get. Has anybody else come out?"

"Nope." Bucky looked back towards the stronghold. "We've got men with guns on the entrance, but there must be a really well-hidden exit somewhere." He paused. "You sure you're okay? No rash or anything?"

Steve squinted against the sunlight and cleared his throat, buttoning up the borrowed shirt. It had to be Dugan's - nobody else had a shirt that could fit around his shoulders. "I'm okay, Buck. Remember? I don't get sick anymore."

Bucky eyed him suspiciously, and then looked up at the cloudy sky. There were little white creases on either side of his nose, and his fists were clenched so tightly that his palms were probably bleeding. "Mmm," he said noncommittally, but left it at that.

* * *

_Air._

_AIR._

Steve came awake in a blind panic, not entirely sure what was happening. Then his mind caught back up with him, and he realized he was sitting bolt upright in his bedroll, wheezing and struggling to breathe.

"Steve - hey." The quiet whisper and the hand on his shoulder told him that Bucky was there. "Here, lean forward."

Drawing his knees up, Steve bowed his head and focused on breathing _\- in - out - in - out._ His brother's hand was firm on the back of his neck, while the other hand traced a rhythmic pattern up and down his spine, something for him to focus on, to time his breathing by. They'd done this before during a hundred asthma attacks.

At length, his breathing calmed. There was still a weird, wet catch with every breath, but everything else seemed to be fine. Slowly, Steve straightened and tried to draw away.

Bucky didn't let go.

"What on _earth_ was that," he hissed into Steve's ear. "I thought you didn't get asthma since you got big."

"I don't." Steve tried to shrug Bucky's grip off, but his friend was too determined for that. "S'okay, Buck. Go back to sleep."

Bucky sputtered, whisper cracking in incredulous fury. The storm had been brewing all day, and now it was about to break. "Go back - _Steve_. This is what happens when you take your _tom-fool gas mask off._ You've been clearing your throat all day, squinting and blinking..."

"It's been sunny," Steve interjected, trying to defend himself.

"Not _that_ sunny!" Bucky was barely even pretending to whisper anymore, sounding more and more like his mother, which struck Steve as something between funny and alarming. "And now you can't even breathe - look at me when I'm yelling at you, will ya?"

"I can't," said Steve, who had only just barely figured that out himself. He rubbed at his eyes, which tickled and tingled uncomfortably. Bucky sighed and then knocked his hands away from his face.

"Stop that," he grumbled, and then Steve heard the metallic scrape of a canteen being unscrewed. Water sloshed, and then a damp cloth was shoved in his hand. "Here."

Gratefully, Steve mopped at his eyes, blinking gingerly as his crusted eyelashes pulled apart and the interior of the tent swam into view. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me," Bucky growled resignedly, and rolled over into his blankets again, clearly telegraphing his fury through his stiff back and shoulders. "When we meet up with the rest of the company, you're getting a full physical. If you still feel like thanking me after that, go ahead."

Steve lay back down as well, keeping the cool cloth against his eyes. It felt nice there. "I'm okay, Buck. Be fine by morning, really."

* * *

Steve was not fine by morning.

He said he was, but he wasn't fooling anybody. His pace was a little slower, and he kept clearing his throat explosively. Eventually, he borrowed Morita's sunglasses, even though the day was even more overcast than the day before. Bucky hovered like an overprotective mosquito, and the Commandos clumped closely around them both, loyally pretending not to notice anything, and providing a buffer between their captain and the rest of the soldiers.

By dinnertime, even the most oblivious could tell something was wrong. The pace had slowed, they were off their predicted rendezvous time, and Steve couldn't look at the fire without tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I'm all right," he told his men for the hundredth time. "Just need to sleep it off tonight" - but that night, he couldn't even lie down without coughing everybody awake.

Bucky didn't even pretend not to be worried out of his mind.

* * *

Peggy knew something was wrong when both halves of the company were reunited and Sergeant Barnes was the one who came to report to her and Colonel Phillips.

"Where's Steve?" she demanded, in the same instant that Colonel Phillips barked, "Where's Müller?

Sergeant Barnes saluted sharply, but his movements were rushed. "We took the base, but never found the doctor," he reported, lips tight, words blunt. "Steve's been gassed, and Warren's dead."

_Gas._ Peggy felt herself blanch. Her mother's brother had been terribly scarred by chlorine back in the previous war. She still remembered, as a little girl, flinching away with childish terror from the sad-eyed, twisted face.

Colonel Phillips' jawline visibly hardened. "What kind of gas?"

Barnes shook his head. There was a touch of helplessness in the gesture. "We don't know," he admitted. "Warren was bleeding from the mouth and nose when we got him out. We brought his body back, and the doctors are checking it now."

Peggy's professionalism wavered. "And where's the captain?" she asked again, fist clenching white-knuckled around her pencil.

"Medic tent," said Barnes shortly. It was very obvious from his stance that he would much rather have been with his friend at this moment.

Phillips glanced her way. "Better go check on him, then," he told her, with the sort of gruff kindness that it had taken her months to recognize as such. "Don't want him sneaking out before anybody has a chance to pop a thermometer in his mouth."

It was a transparent excuse, but Peggy grasped at it all the same.

* * *

She was initially relieved when she found him. Steve was sitting on a bunk in the medical tent, coughing into a wad of cloth somebody had handed him, but he was alive and not disfigured, and Peggy felt her heart rate settle a little. Then he raised his head, and her concern shot right back up again as she saw his eyes were red and inflamed, tears streaming down his cheeks at the dim light that filtered through the canvas walls.

"Captain," she greeted him crisply, stuffing all her worry and fear into the back of her heart so it wouldn't come out in her voice. The result came out perhaps a bit _too_ crisp, but Steve didn't seem to mind.

"Hey," he rasped hoarsely, and then grimaced. Evidently speaking was painful for him.

Peggy crossed the room and laid a hand on his forehead. It was a trifle clammy, but not fevered. "What have you got yourself into this time?" she asked.

Steve opened his mouth to answer, but coughed instead - a deep, gut-wrenching cough that left him hunched and shallowly panting. Discreetly, he tucked away the cloth that he'd been coughing into, but Peggy's eyes were sharp enough to catch the scarlet stain he was trying to hide from her. Her heart twisted, and she shifted her hand to a more supportive position on his shoulder.

"I've had worse," Steve grated at last, and then he aimed a wan but cheerful smile her direction, completely at odds with the darker, more serious look in his watering eyes. "I'll be okay."

The medic arrived then, standing in the tent doorway and looking at her impatiently. Peggy retrieved her hand and straightened with reluctance.

"I certainly hope so," she managed, and then saw herself out.

Barnes was pacing out in front of the medical tent. Peggy leaned her back against the trunk of a pine tree, heedless of the pitch she might get on her clothes, and looked up into the grey sky.

"He says he's had worse," she said at last, not quite looking at the sergeant. Barnes grunted. A few heartbeats of silence passed, during which neither one said anything.

"_Has_ he had worse?" she finally inquired.

Bucky stopped pacing, and came and stood somewhat near her, looking down at the crushed ferns beneath their boots. "Yeah, he has," he answered at last. "Then again, he's almost died before, a bunch of times."

Somehow, that wasn't exactly comforting.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, folks! This is an extremely late (we're talking literally years late!) answer to a prompt request by Project7723: "What if Steve got poisoned? And since it probably had to be altered to get past the serum, no one knows what it is. Bucky and Peggy have to figure out what it is, and who is behind it."
> 
> The story has changed somewhat from the original prompt - but then, that's what happens in my brain. Hope you like it anyway!
> 
> Also, here's a plug for Project7723 - go check out her super great stories! She's awesome!
> 
> History note: Steve and his men use correct protocol for donning and removing their masks, as well as checking for gas. While gas was not used as a mass weapon during WWII, that didn't stop soldiers from being prepared and trained.
> 
> Source: "Adjustment of the Service Gas Mask" Official Training Film, War Department, produced by The Signal Corps in collaboration with the Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, 1941


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

_ Men who survive the attack for a few hours develop the most intense acute pulmonary edema with extreme cyanosis, dyspnea and very abundant frothy expectoration, often blood tinged. Most of the deaths occur in this stage. _

_ Aldred Scott Warthin, 1919 _

* * *

The medics had no idea what the gas was.

“We’re conducting an autopsy on Private Warren, in an attempt to learn more,” the lead medic explained, “But so far we’ve never seen anything like it, and we don’t have the tools out here that we’d need for a more thorough investigation.” He looked tired. It was very, very late in the evening, and there were streaks of either blood or mud on his sleeves; the light in Colonel Phillips’ tent was too bad for Peggy to tell which.

Phillips glared out from under his eyebrows at the man across the camp table from him. Many men interpreted that look as one of anger, but Peggy knew better. She could read the concern, the weight of responsibility in that glance.

Then he looked across at her.

“Carter,” he barked.

Peggy’s spine straightened with a jerk. “Sir?”

Phillips groaned and heaved himself onto his feet. “I want you and Barnes to take as many men as we can spare and go down to comb that place thoroughly. If there are any clues, any more gas grenades, bring them back.” Abruptly, he transferred his attention to the medical man across from him. “If we can put a name to this thing, will that help?”

The medic’s shoulders relaxed. “I can’t promise anything, but we can use all the information we can get.”

“Good.” The colonel looked back at Peggy. “Why are you still here? Get going. Oh,” he stopped her as she reached the tent flap. “And get word to Stark. Tell him we need him out here, on the double, and to bring a doctor while he’s at it. I don’t care how many regulations he breaks to do it.”

* * *

The base was empty when they returned to it, dressed in heavy clothing that tucked into boots and gloves, gas masks and weapons at the ready. The gas seemed to have dissipated, but nobody trusted appearances. Instead, they all toughed it out, sweltering and perspiring in their thick woolen clothing, sweat dripping down their faces to pool in the base of their masks.

When inspired, the Commandos were very nearly a force of nature. Bucky led them as they swept through the hallways, kicking down doors, rifling through papers, turning every drawer and cupboard inside out.

“Gabe!” became the common cry - he and Peggy were the only ones who could read German well enough, although every man carried a list of keywords to look for. 

Fittingly, Bucky was the one to find them, swept hastily into a drawer, the pages scrambled and out of order.

“Hey, look at these,” he demanded, dropping the stack onto the large table that Peggy and Gabe had claimed as their workstation. From its appearance, it used to do double-duty as some kind of workbench and desk combination. “They got molecular diagrams.”

Peggy threw him a surprised glance, remembered belatedly that Steve had said his friend was something of a science fiend, and directed her attention to the diagrams. ˆ _ Giftgas f _ _ ür  _ _ Übermensch, _ ” it read across the top, followed by a jumble of sketches.

“‘Poison gas for super men,’” she translated slowly.

The room was so still you could have heard a pin drop.

This hadn’t been a trap for any old army unit. This hadn’t even been a trap for the Howling Commandos. This - all of it - had been set up specifically to get Steve Rogers into the line of fire.

Suddenly Peggy’s blood was boiling; she could have sworn she felt it vibrating with stiff anger in her veins. She stood, clutching the incriminating papers in one hand.

“Let’s get these to Stark.”

* * *

Howard Stark arrived just after midnight with a couple of nurses in tow, and was greeted instantly with a white-faced Peggy Carter thrusting a handful of papers into his face. “Read these,” she’d demanded. 

“Hey, Pegs, nice to see you too,” he chirped back, scrubbing at his reddened, sleep-deprived eyes. Peggy didn’t even bother with pleasantries, simply dragging him by the shoulders to the nearest light, at which point she shoved the papers at him once more. “Read them,” she demanded again.

It took far longer than she would have liked. Howard took over the main command table in Phillip’s tent, spreading the salvaged papers across it and going over them line by line, “I can’t read German,” he admitted, “but the chemistry is clear. Wow, this is…” he shuffled the papers, held one up to the light, “...oh, this makes so much sense.”

“Out with it,” Phillips ordered brusquely. He wasn’t much of a man for the dramatic posing that Stark preferred. 

“In English,” Bucky interjected. They all knew Stark well enough to know that he could easily lose them all in technical jargon.

Howard scraped his hand through his hair until it stood on end like a crest from some sort of bird. “Remember that fella who got a whiff of the stuff?”

Peggy did. She wished she did not. Beside her, Bucky turned a very unpleasant shade of gray. “Yeah.”

Howard shook his head. “Got the records of his autopsy. Remember all that fluid draining out of his mouth? That was his lungs.” He looked just slightly green. “As in, that was literally his lungs. Liquified. His chest cavity is completely raw.”

The words didn’t make sense - and then suddenly, horribly, they did. Bucky bit down on his knuckles. He looked nauseous. Peggy’s own stomach felt like it was about to turn inside out. Phillips’ face creased even more deeply than usual.

“Erskine’s serum giving out?” he asked after a minute.

Howard was busy poring over the documents in his hands and had to be asked twice.

“No, no,” he reassured them when he finally realized they were talking to him. “No, they’re smarter than that. They’re using his own body against him, serum and all.” 

He actually sounded rather admiring, in a purely scientific way of course. Peggy made a distracted mental note to teach the man some manners. 

Phillips grunted, shifted his weight. “Chlorine, then?” 

Stark pointed a handful of papers at the colonel. “Close - but no cigar. Erskine figured the serum would let him breathe any of the gases we knew about with only minimal effects. This seems to work the same way, only it’s like ten thousand times stronger.” His eyes grew distant for a moment, “What I wouldn’t give to pick the brain of the guy who dreamed this baby up.”

Well, that was quite enough of  _ that _ . Peggy stepped hard on Howard’s foot and he got the hint to continue. He did so, peppering his explanation with many exclamations of surprise as he continued to thumb through the papers.

“ See, when you breathe something that irritates the mucus membranes in your lungs, they make more mucus to try to suppress the irritant. And that usually works - except stuff like chlorine and phosgene then react with the water in the mucus to make acid. The more the acid eats your lungs, the more your body tries to flush it out. It’s the natural healing process - but this way your body just keeps giving it what it needs to make more acid - and it eats all the soft stuff out of your lungs until you can’t absorb oxygen any more, or you suffocate on your own blood.” He flipped a page and cheerfully continued. “Or until your heart gives out under the strain.”

Halfway through the grotesque recital, Bucky gagged, hard, and turned away, wiping trembling hands across his face. Phillips looked like somebody had carved him out of marble, tired and stoney and ancient. Cold, hard, incredulous fury burned white hot through Peggy’s soul, so great that she couldn’t even comprehend it.

Those  _ dogs _ . Those despicable, worthless curs. In their attempt to rid the world of Captain America, they had found a way to make the serum work against his own accelerated healing ability. His body would labor valiantly - he wouldn’t succumb as quickly as poor Warren, but in the end it would just be providing more fluid for the acidic irritant to take advantage of. 

She didn’t remember leaving the command tent - only a vague impression of darkness and blurred lantern light around her. Her toe caught on something; she tripped and caught herself, pressing onward toward the medical tent.

She needed to go to him.

One of Howard’s nurses passed her at the entry. Their eyes met for a moment, and Peggy didn’t like the worry she saw in the other woman’s face. Then she was inside, a lone, shielded lamp providing a dim illumination for whoever entered. Steve himself couldn’t see it - a soothing wet compress was laid over his eyes.

He had grown so much worse since the last time she’d seen him. The captain lay on his back, Bucky’s pack and bedroll wedged under his head and shoulders in an attempt to keep his airway raised and clear. His hands plucked at the front of his undershirt as though he was trying to give himself room to breathe, and each breath was tight and bloody, whistling through his raw, inexorably closing throat with a sound almost like a soft, agonizing whimper.

Peggy hesitated and then approached as if drawn by an irresistible force. She sat on the edge of the cot, careful not to overbalance it. “How are you feeling?” she inquired, reaching out to feel his forehead. It was clammy beneath her fingers and he turned into her touch. 

“Peggy?” His voice was ragged.

She hummed in response, not certain she could keep her voice steady, glad he couldn’t see her face. 

His forehead furrowed, and one of his wandering hands found hers. “Y’okay?”

The irony of the question did not escape her, and a half-hysterical laugh threatened to embarrass her. Here she sat, whole and healthy, while acid ate at him from the inside out, and he was asking her if  _ she _ was okay.

“Tired,” she answered more honestly than she had meant. She frowned. “Your hands are like ice, Steve.” Now that her eyes were accustomed to the dim light, she realized he was pale, and looked exhausted. Reaching over, she snagged the blanket from the next cot and spread it over him. “Better?”

Before he could answer, a spasm of coughing hit him, doubling him over. Dark fluid flew from his lips; he choked, struggled to heave in another breath of air past the phlegm and foam that clogged his airways. Aghast, Peggy could only watch, catching his shoulder as he nearly fell over the side of the cot in his strain for air.

When he finally drew a jagged, shuddering, whistling breath and collapsed back onto Bucky’s pack, the spasm past, she let herself breathe again.

“Sorry,” he mouthed carefully, trying not to trigger another cough. Blood and foam smeared his chin and trickled from the corner of his mouth with every labored breath. The compress over his eyes had been knocked aside in his fight to breathe, and the sight of his eyes made her catch her breath in horror. They were reddened, the lids swollen and inflamed to a grotesque degree, yellow discharge clotting his eyelashes and gathering in the corners of his eyes. She didn’t need to ask to know that he couldn’t see her at all.

Biting back her emotions, Peggy reached for a cloth and gently wiped his face clean. Still silent, unwilling to trust her voice, she readjusted the dressing over his poor eyes, where it had been knocked aside in his fight to breathe. 

“Does your head ache?” she asked, once she was sure she could speak evenly. He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. Another wrenching cough seized him, and again Peggy steadied him as well as she could. Then, when it was over, and he sank back exhausted, she very gently reached out for his head. He started in surprise at her touch.

“Here,” she murmured softly, slowly massaging circles into his temples. “Here, just - let me?”

It felt oddly right to touch him like this, his sweaty hair damp between her fingers, his labored breaths brushing the skin of her wrists. After the first tentative moment, she felt him slowly relax, turning his head a little closer into her touch. Silently, he mouthed his thanks. His breathing didn’t ease, nor did the straining muscles in his neck and chest slacken, but she thought the lines of pain in his face loosened a little in relief.

She stayed by him, changing the dressing on his eyes and coaxing his headache away with tender fingers, until Bucky came and called her away. 

* * *

Outside the tent, the world was still pitch black. It had to be nearing morning, though the sky wasn’t yet brightening along the horizon. Peggy turned to catch a glimpse of Bucky’s face in the light of the flashlight he carried. He looked very, very tired, and as if he was about to punch something or burst into tears; she wasn’t sure which. Perhaps both.

“Any luck so far?”

She knew the answer to her question before he shook his head. “No. Stark wants you to help him read the papers again - maybe there’s something he missed.”

Weary beyond measure, Peggy nodded, and then glanced toward the medic tent where Steve lay. “You stay with him,” she ordered, as if they both didn’t know that was exactly what he was going to do. “He keeps knocking the compress off his eyes.”

“I know, I know.” Barnes shook his head. “Never could manage to stay still long enough for something like that. Used to have to sit on him sometimes, hold him down.” He paused, and then put what was probably supposed to be a reassuring hand on her arm. “He can take pain like nobody I’ve ever known.”

Peggy thought of needles and blindingly white light, the large sarcophagus of Project Rebirth and the single agonized yell torn from Steve’s throat before his sheer stubbornness won out.

She turned her face away. “I know he can.”

* * *

Dawn brought no breakthroughs. About the time that breakfast would have been on a normal day, Howard finally began to admit defeat.

“I mean, I  _ know  _ I should be able to do something,” he groaned, screwing the heels of both hands into his eye sockets. His tie was long gone, his vest hung over the back of a chair, and he was only wearing one shoe for some inconceivable reason that Peggy hadn’t followed. “I invented him; I should be able to fix him.”

“You didn’t invent him,” Peggy contradicted wearily. The German papers spread across the table danced before her tired eyes. She knew colloquial German, not highly technical chemistry terms that all seemed to be at least sixteen letters long. “You helped build the Vita-ray machine; that’s not the same thing.”

Stark flapped a disinterested hand at her. “Yuh-huh, whatever. Look, I gotta get some air, get rid of the bats in my brain. Be back in five.”

He wandered off. Peggy flipped aimlessly through the papers for a little longer, but chemistry wasn’t her forte. Two or three young soldiers from the platoon who had once been in college as chemists had volunteered to help, and they had a better grasp of the material. Her speciality was in Stark-wrangling, and until he came back, there was nothing she could do.

So Peggy found herself drifting off in the direction of the medical tent again. Just to check up on him - that was all.

She could hear his breathing before she even reached the tent flap - or rather, his attempts to breathe. He sounded more like he was being violently drowned than anything else.

She entered the tent, and stopped short, aghast.

Bucky looked up at her entry. He was wringing his hands, knuckles white. Red blisters rose along the backs of his hands, on his wrists. Beside him, Dugan and Jones were busy replacing Steve’s pillow; the one he had was drenched with dark, bloody liquid and foam. They were wearing work gloves.

“The stuff he’s coughing up’s acidic,” Gabe explained patiently, seeing her horrified face. He had his hands behind the captain’s head and back, helping raise him just a little more. “Hand me that blanket, willya? I’m gonna see what else we have to prop him up.”

“You don’t want to keep him up.”

Peggy’s power of locomotion returned, and she spun on one heel to face Colonel Phillips, just ducking in the door of the tent. He looked at their surprised faces and shook his head grimly before firing off a string of orders. “Somebody take that junk off of his bed. You,” stabbing a finger at Dugan, “elevate the foot of the cot every now and then. Twenty minutes ought to be about right. Believe me, you want to get his feet up and his head down.”

“He can’t breathe when he’s laying down.” Bucky was on his feet, jaw squared as if for a fight even as the others moved to obey. “Coughs like anything - always has.”

But Peggy understood.

“We need to drain his lungs,” she realized. “He’s truly drowning.”

Steve did cough worse when they laid him down, and when Dugan set his feet and hoisted up the foot of the cot a foot or so, his coughs became strangled, desperate gurgles. His hands tore at his own chest and throat in a quest for air until Bucky threw himself to his knees and tried to hold them still. “Steve! Stevie, you’re gonna hurt yourself. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

At the cry, Peggy’s brain finally kicked back in. Squirming through the crowded space and past the thrashing, choking captain, she found Bucky’s discarded pack and upended it, heedlessly pawing through his things until she found what she was looking for. She fought her way back to Bucky’s side and pressed them into his hand. “Here.”

He gave her one confused look, and then grateful realization flickered in his eyes as he took them from her.

Rebecca Barnes knitted good, thick socks for her brother in the army. They wrestled them on over the captain’s hands - and then Morita found the lopsided pair his little cousins had made for him, and Falsworth volunteered his extra set. By the time Steve had coughed up all the poisonous fluid he could, and Dugan set the foot of the cot back down, the captain’s hands looked like woolen bowling balls.

He might give himself rugburn, but he certainly couldn’t tear his own chest open anymore.

“He’s breathing easier,” someone noted, and Peggy watched Barnes’ stiff shoulders relax ever so slightly. She felt herself relax too, relief fluttering faintly around the cold, hard fear in her chest. 

Colonel Phillips nodded shortly. “Let him hang his head over the edge of the cot,” he recommended shortly. “Should help him some.”

The others moved to obey, putting a basin on the floor to catch the foam and fluid now steadily dripping from the captain’s mouth. Peggy took a breath and turned away. There was nothing more she could do here, and Stark would be looking for her. Actually, she would probably end up needing to look for him. That man could get lost more easily than anyone she’d ever known, and right now they all needed him on-track. 

She was halfway to the command tent when a hand fell on her elbow from behind. Out of reflex she should have spun and sank her fist into the offender’s nose, but she’d recognized the footsteps, so she merely pulled away. “Barnes?”

His jaw was clenched so hard she began to worry he’d crack a tooth. “I gotta do something,” he admitted straight up front. “Give me something to do. I can’t keep sitting by and watching him - I gotta do something that’ll help.”

“Help me find Stark, then,” she automatically retorted, before her thought processes caught back up again. “But you were being helpful.”

Bucky shook his head. “I can’t just sit - I gotta do something,” he repeated very quietly. “And any of the boys can mop his eyes with that - what’s that stuff they’re slopping over his face?”

“Bicarbonate of soda,” Peggy started to answer. She turned back on her quest and then stopped short.  _ Wait. _

Whirling, she saw his own eyes beginning to widen. Their brains were both working far too sluggishly, struggling through the exhaustion and fear of the last few hours.

“Baking soda,” he repeated slowly, “ an alkaline compound to…”

“...neutralize the acid—!”

They stared at each other for a minute, breathless. Then Bucky shook his head, face starting to fall. “It  _ can’t _ be that easy. They’d have figured it out thirty years ago.”

Hope slowly unfurled a tremulous leaf in Peggy’s heart - ridiculous, incredulous hope. 

“They didn’t have Howard Stark,” she retorted, and took off at a dead run, Bucky Barnes at her heels.

* * *

“Bicarb of soda?” Howard’s expression would have been absolutely priceless in any other situation. “Pegs, I hate to break it to you, but I think you’ve been up too long.” He blinked, looking rather startled. “And  _ I’m  _ one to talk. I can’t believe that sentence just came out of my mouth…”

Peggy grabbed him by the front of his shirt, forcing his attention. “Listen to me, Howard,” she demanded. “Listen to me. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever known, God help me.”

Howard looked faintly appeased. “But still - dumping soda down his lungs would be like throwing a thimbleful of water on the Triangle Factory Fire. Won’t work.”

The fire mentioned meant nothing to her; judging by Barnes’ grimace it was a regional reference, and not a good one. 

“Then make it stronger!” Peggy wasn’t about to let a setback like this stop them. “Surely you can make something strong enough to neutralize the acid in his lungs.”

Stark shook his head. “It’d kill him,” he said bluntly. “Alkali can burn even worse than acid - and even if we were able to mix the two successfully, I don’t know what the reaction would do to him. You ever combined baking soda and vinegar? Think of that, only a lot more violent and trapped inside his lungs. It could bust what’s left of them, for all I know.”

Peggy dug her nails into her palms. Her voice was harsh with suppressed feeling. “He is already dying, Howard.”

Howard flinched as though she’d slapped him. From his corner of the tent, Barnes sucked in his breath with a short, tight hiss. It was the first time any of them had admitted it, but it was true. Steve Rogers was losing his battle against the acid. Try as he might, the gas had been engineered especially to turn his unique physiology against himself - and it was succeeding.

Tension and despair filled the tent, closing around Peggy’s throat with a grip like ice. For just a moment, she felt the blackness of sheer hopelessness drop like a thick curtain over them all. 

Then a gust of wind fluttered the canvas at the mouth of the tent, letting in a breath of fresh air that was a welcome relief from the built-up tension hanging between them. Slowly, Stark ran both hands through his hair until it stood on end. He took a deep breath, and his shoulders sagged. 

Then he looked down at his papers. 

“Huh,” he said, and started groping across the table without raising his eyes from his notes. “Pencil.”

Peggy plucked one from behind his ear and thrust it into his hand. Then she patted his shoulder briefly, and slipped out of the tent without a word. 

Bucky watched the inventor scribble and mutter for a few minutes. 

“Stark,” he said sharply.

Howard’s eyebrow flickered, the only sign he’d heard. Bucky stepped across the intervening space and plucked the pencil from the man’s hand. “Stark,” he said again. 

Howard blinked and looked up. 

Bucky’s eyes were dark with desperation. “The first time I saw you,” he said, voice low, “that fool flying car of yours about busted the stage. If this thing you mix up kills Steve…”

He couldn’t finish, but Howard understood, and his lips thinned in determination. 

“Steve’s the best thing I ever made.” The inventor shook his head and snatched back the pencil. “I’m not about to give up on him now.”

* * *

That morning was the longest any of them had ever known. Howard was beyond reasoning with, plunged up to his ears in calculations, half distracted.

“I need my equipment,” he demanded, stomping into a briefing meeting and shaking handfuls of papers at the colonel. “All this is only so much theoretical trash unless I can actually do something with it.”

The equipment was too far away. It would take days to be packed and shipped, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that they didn’t have that kind of time. Steve lay panting for air that was doing him less and less good as time went on. The sheer amount of blood he was coughing up had already been cause for major concern, but now pieces of dissolving tissue were starting to come up with the fluid. 

If this went on much longer, he would lose the ability to absorb what oxygen he managed to suck through his closing, shredded throat. 

Peggy couldn’t imagine a more miserable death. She’d seen blood and gore, but the memory of that soldier’s empty, ravaged chest cavity - and then to think of Steve’s body doing that even as he fought for every breath… it was enough to nearly drive her mad.

“The Hydra outpost will have equipment,” she cut Stark’s ramble off. “Surely it will be sufficient for our needs. Permission to go fetch it, sir.”

Phillips agreed, of course. The Commandos were standing by to make the trip almost before Peggy could relay the news. Jamming Stark into a gas mask, boots, gloves, and heavy jacket in case of lingering gas, they took him into the base itself and let him pick out the equipment he wanted brought back.

As it turned out, there was too much of it.

“They’ve got a full lab,” Howard explained, voice distorted by the gas mask. “I’ll save time by just working on-site.” He fidgeted with the strap of the mask. “These did  _ not _ come out well in production - I’m sure I didn’t design the strap to be this uncomfortable…”

“Perhaps your head’s swelling.” Peggy knocked his hand away from the strap. “How quickly can you get the gas made?”

Howard looked at the lab, still in fairly good repair despite the mess the Commandos had made of it when searching for the gas compound earlier. “Give me ten hours.”

Peggy’s heart turned over in her chest. They didn’t have that kind of time. Steve didn’t have that kind of time.

“You’ve got three,” she told him crisply, and began clearing a space for him to work.

* * *

Three hours passed - and then four.

Peggy had long since returned to the medic tent where the captain lay, unable to keep away. The afternoon was rapidly melting into evening, but the air in the tent was still warm and smelled strongly of canvas. Peggy fanned Steve with a piece of folded paper, periodically changing the cloth over his blinded eyes, doing what little she could to help.

She wondered if he even noticed.

The captain was long past speech. His face was furrowed with pain and exhaustion, and every painful gasp for air was labored, strained, his chest distended even when exhaling. The medic had used X-ray film to make a makeshift oxygen face-tent in a fruitless attempt to ease his breathing, but the acid and blood Steve kept spitting up made it impossible to keep it on for more than a few moments at a time. Beneath it, his face was red with the effort of breathing, but his blistered lips were slate blue, as were his fingernails and ears. His hands were disquietingly cold, especially when considering his normally-elevated temperature, and when the medic came through and listened to his heart, he pulled away with a grim look on his face.

“His heart’s laboring,” he told them frankly. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

Barnes had all but kicked him out of the tent.

Once, Steve had seemed to regain a little awareness, turning his head as Peggy changed the bandage over his eyes and squinting blindly up in her direction. She smiled, laying a hand on his hair in what she hoped was a soothing gesture. Bucky leaned in, gripping at his friend’s hand to keep him from tugging at the apparatus on his face.

“Hey, Steve. We came up with an idea that might help. Just gotta hang on a little longer. You game?”

Steve’s sightless eyes flickered towards his friend’s voice, and he seemed to nod before slipping back into his single-minded focus on staying alive. Bubbles of dark fluid and phlegm popped on his lips and trickled down from the corner of his mouth as he choked, body convulsing in agony. Bucky kept his own gaze fixed on the captain’s face, and in his wide-eyed, determined intensity Peggy read a desperate prayer to whoever would hear it.

Bucky and Peggy weren’t alone, nor was Bucky’s the only plea ascending to heaven on the captain’s behalf. The rest of the Commandos had crowded in as well, drawn to the irresistible magnetism of their leader even as he lay dying. Denier dipped into the bottom of his pack and came up with a worn rosary; now he silently fingered the beads from the place in the corner he’d claimed for himself, lips moving soundlessly. On the other side of the bed, beside Peggy’s elbow, Gabe went to his knees, hands folded as he, too, prayed. Falsworth bowed his head respectfully, and even Dugan took off the cherished bowler. Peggy’s own prayer, wild and wordless, throbbed desperately in her heart with every beat -  _ please, please, please... _

For a few minutes, the only sound was that of Steve’s constant fight for breath.

Then Steve choked, strained fruitlessly for air in what had become a regular occurrence. But this time - this time the spasm continued. It didn’t let up. Foam clogged his airways, but he couldn’t draw breath to cough it up.

Panic clutched at Peggy’s heart as she sprang upright, reaching helplessly for him. Steve was suffocating - literally drowning on his own fluids.

And Howard hadn’t come.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your lovely comments! I love hearing from you all. :)
> 
> Some notes: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was a terrible tragedy in New York City in 1911. Because of it, labor and safety laws were changed. Howard Stark wouldn’t have been born yet, but his mother sewed shirtwaists for a factory, so he would definitely have heard about it.
> 
> In preparation for this story, I read some truly horrifying accounts. All symptoms Steve is suffering have their basis in fact, though I’ve tweaked and combined a few things for the purposes of the story. The only wholly fictional thing is the acid being strong enough to hollow out a chest cavity or burn people once it’s coughed up. The colonel's treatment recommendations are consistent with WWI procedures for gassing victims (raising the foot of the bed, hanging the head over the edge, etc.).


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

* * *

_ Poison gas could be used to cause temporary or permanent incapacitation, or to kill at once, or to bring about a delayed fatal ending. _

_ — Aldred Scott Warthin, 1919 _

* * *

Pandemonium struck the tent like a fist. With a howl of anguish, Bucky seized his friend by the shoulders and hauled him upright, hitting him a tremendous wallop on the back with more strength than Peggy had known he possessed. Dark acid spattered from Steve’s lips and sprayed the inside of the face-tent, long gooey threads and bloody clumps dangling down over his chin - and he impossibly choked in a gasp. The next breath wouldn’t come, and he tipped backward again, too spent to hold himself up, too unwieldy for Bucky to hold him.

Dugan hoisted the foot of the cot again, holding it tightly as though Steve’s life depended on it, even as Peggy tore off the ruined face-tent and Bucky tugged the captain’s head over the edge of the cot, holding it over the basin on the floor. More blood and acid came - and Steve managed another half-breath, though it was anybody’s guess whether it did him any good. He fought for air, every muscle, every tendon standing out with the effort. Bucky murmured low in Steve’s ear, part profanity, part prayer.

Stark burst into the tent at that moment, embracing a four-foot metal canister as if it were a new bride. “Got it!” He cheered. “I think. Maybe.” Then he took in the desperate scene, and the jubilation visibly drained from his face.

From his place by Steve’s head, Bucky looked up. He had blisters rising along his cheek beneath a streak of the acidic blood that was still dribbling from his best friend’s mouth.

“Do it,” he ordered tersely. 

Things moved quickly after that.

“Put this on,” Falsworth thrust a gas mask into Peggy’s hands before handing one to Barnes and pulling one on himself. The alkaline gas, if it escaped, would kill them just as surely as the acid gas.

Dugan, his own mask in place, stood in front of the tent opening to keep people from coming in, while Gabe helped Howard attach a modified mouthpiece to the tank. Nobody said anything - time was counted by the last few gasps that their downed captain was still struggling to take, and it was rapidly running out.

It took three of them to get the mouthpiece on him. Even in his weakened state, Steve fought beyond reasoning, pushing it away from his face with blue fingers, mouth wide open as he strained for the air he couldn’t find, couldn’t draw into his ruined lungs.

“C’mon, Stevie,” Bucky begged, alternately swearing and pleading as he tried to keep Steve’s hands away from the mask Howard was adjusting. “Just for a second, okay?” From the other side of the cot, Peggy held the captain’s head, trying to keep it steady. Tears burned her eyes; she blinked them away impatiently.

And then the mask was on - and Howard opened the valve on the canister - and every single person in the room held their breath, pleading, hoping, praying,  _ willing _ the captain to take just one more breath.

“You can do this,” Bucky panted into the dying man’s ear. “Just take one more breath. One more.”

And somehow, impossibly, he did.

Steve’s rib cage jutted out against the fabric of his undershirt as he gasped - and then his body convulsed, back arching violently as the alkaline gas hit his lungs. The legs of the cot slammed against the floor. Gabe and Falsworth threw themselves on Steve’s left arm as Bucky and Morita lunged for the right, but holding him down was like trying to stop an avalanche. Exhausted though he was, weakened with pain and blood loss and lack of oxygen, Steve Rogers was still strong as an ox.

“Hang on, Steve,” Peggy begged, trying to hold his head steady so the mask wouldn’t come off. She crawled fully onto the head of the cot as he bucked again, both for better access and to help hold him down. “Please - please, God, please…”

Tears streamed down Steve’s cheeks, sweat burst from his forehead. Under the edge of the mouthpiece, a whitish foam began bubbling past the seal. 

“Get the mask off!” Howard hollered over the din. “That’s enough - get it off!” He was unable to get close enough to the bed to do so himself, so Peggy freed one hand long enough to yank it clear. Steve coughed and tossed his head back and forth, copious quantities of blood-streaked white foam flying from his nose and mouth, splattering the bed and everyone around him. Unlike the acidic stuff he’d been choking up earlier, this didn’t burn where it touched skin, and Peggy found herself suddenly, wildly hopeful.

It took a while for Steve to stop thrashing, but eventually they were able to lay him down again, head hanging over the side of the cot once more. This time, though, the fluid that dribbled from his mouth was mostly clear, not the dark acid he’d been choking up before.

“Water,” Howard babbled to nobody in particular. He’d pulled off his gas mask and now rotated it absently between his hands. “Product of a reaction - water, salt, and heat. Probably hurts like the dickens, only it’s better than the acid was.”

“So did it work?” Peggy pulled off her own gas mask and tugged her skirt down around her knees, though she stayed seated on the edge of the captain’s cot. Her legs ached where Steve’s head had slammed backwards into them at some point - she would definitely have a bruise.

Howard indignantly gestured at the white foam Steve was still weakly spitting up. “Of course it worked. I’m a genius.”

Bucky’s laugh sounded half hysterical, as though he were on the verge of tears. A bruise was blooming on his forehead - evidently they’d all come away with some sort of damage. “So he’ll get better then?”

The half-beat of hesitation before Stark’s answer struck cold fear to Peggy’s heart.

“The chemical reaction worked,” the inventor clarified at last. “Now we just gotta wait and see if the serum will fix his lungs back up. That’s one thing I can’t do.”

Peggy reached for the captain’s shoulder, patting it soothingly before brushing back the sweaty hair from his forehead. His lips were still blue, and he didn’t respond to the people around him. Even so, she thought his breathing seemed a little less strained, though he still had to fight for every breath, air rattling in his swollen throat and ravaged chest. 

At least now, though, he had a chance.

* * *

The effect of Howard’s formula became apparent remarkably quickly. Fifteen minutes after the alkaline was administered, Steve’s strained breathing became noticeably quieter. The lines of pain in his face eased somewhat, and he collapsed into a state of complete exhaustion. His lips were still blue, but at least he didn’t seem to be getting any worse. 

“I think he’s sleeping,” Bucky realized, incredulous relief in his voice, and the medic confirmed his guess. Completely worn out from his fight for life, and with the acid finally neutralized, Steve Rogers had fallen asleep. He sprawled limply on the cot, head thrown back, mouth open. If it hadn’t been for the occasional rise and fall of his chest as he drew a congested breath, Peggy would have thought him dead. He certainly looked like a dead man.

“Let him rest,” the medic whispered, turning the dim lights even dimmer. The rest of the Commandos had long since been turned out of the tent by the medic and the nurse, but Bucky didn’t take the hint. Instead, he tipped back his camp stool, balancing at an impossible angle. The dark circles under Peggy’s eyes were visible even in the dimness as he looked up at her. “I’ll sit first watch,” he volunteered, “unless you want it?”

They both knew Peggy badly wanted to stay awake, but she still had to report to the colonel on the captain’s condition. “I’ll sit up with you a bit,” she compromised, and settled into a seat beside him. It had only been something over fifty hours since Steve had been gassed, but it felt like a week. 

“Fair enough.” Bucky nodded, keeping his eyes on the man on the cot. The tent lapsed into silence, broken only by the sound of the captain’s wheezing breaths.

It was only a few minutes later that Peggy’s head bumped against Bucky’s shoulder. The contact startled him - and then he realized she’d actually drifted off. A hint of his old carefree grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he adjusted his position, letting her lean on him. She must truly be exhausted, he realized, and felt some measure of gratitude at her trust. Agent Carter didn’t show off her vulnerabilities to just anybody. 

Making a mental note to remember this moment and use it as leverage if necessary at some point in the future, Bucky settled back in his camp chair and tried to prop up his own heavy eyelids. Hopefully this night would go by smoothly. Hopefully the little punk wouldn’t throw any more drama into his recovery. 

He wasn’t in the mood for any more sudden surprises.

* * *

Peggy hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She didn’t even realize she  _ was _ asleep, until she woke up with a start to Bucky swearing a blue streak.

“What’s the matter?” she demanded, only half awake. The world had the cold, still feeling that meant it was the wee hours of the morning. A lurch of cold alarm shot through her, and she staggered to her feet.  _ Steve’s dead _ , she thought, and her heart pounded to a terrified halt. Had her captain died while she was asleep?

Bucky was on his feet at Steve’s side, stooping over the cot. “He doesn’t sound right,” he rapped out tersely, one hand on Steve’s forehead. Peggy was relieved to see the broad chest rise and fall with a breath.

“Doesn’t sound right in what way?” To her sleep-muddled brain, Bucky wasn’t making much sense. Steve wasn’t saying anything, so how could he not sound right?

“He’s burning up.” Bucky wrenched the top blanket off, and Peggy realized the captain’s face was flushed. His body shook with a hollow cough, but there was a new sound to it. Bucky shook his head in fierce self-recrimination. “I should’ve known. Get the medic.”

By the time she roused the medic and returned with him, Steve had gone from feverish to delirious. His breathing and heartbeat were too shallow, too rapid, as though he were running a race. He moaned unconsciously in pain from time to time, tossing and muttering.

“Pneumonia, I think,” the medic guessed. “Or some kind of lung infection. It was bound to happen, with all the other trauma.”

Peggy’s heart sank to her toes. The last thing they needed was another complication. “Isn’t there something we can do?” she demanded of the medic. The man shook his head, even as he emptied a syringe into the captain’s arm. Then he held up the empty needle. 

“I’ve just done it,” he said. “Penicillin. The only dose we’ve got. Here’s hoping the stuff actually works.”

If it was working, it wasn’t fast enough. Peggy, physically and emotionally exhausted from the toll of the last few days, could only slump in a chair and watch Bucky as he paced, filled with a nervous energy.

“He’s had this before?” she inquired, more for the sake of conversation than anything else. She’d known his medical history since the beginnings of Project Rebirth.

Bucky huffed a grim laugh.

“More times than I can count,” he answered. “Used to be part of the year. Summer ended, fall started, the first snows came, and Stevie came down with pneumonia. Every year without fail. I should’ve figured this would happen with his lungs compromised. Medic says it’s a common aftereffect of being gassed.”

Peggy shook her head. “He’ll get through this.”

Bucky chewed his thumbnail, his eyes fixed on his best friend’s face. They were treating the fever with cold compresses, but it still wasn’t coming down. “Yeah, he will.”

If he bit his thumbnail any further, the man was going to start drawing blood. Peggy intervened. “What did you do for him when he was like this before?”

Bucky shrugged. “Mustard plaster. Or a…” he stopped short, considered, and then sat up sharply. 

“Hey, we got any old blankets?”

Peggy simply stared at him, before her own sleep-deprived brain kicked in, and she nodded. Slipping out of the tent, she returned a few minutes later with an army-issue blanket in hand. Bucky accepted it eagerly, and then stopped, eyeing her.

“This is yours, isn’t it?”

She tilted her chin. “I’m not likely to use it anytime soon,” she snapped back, more crisply than she’d intended. “Use it, Sergeant. I’ll find another.”

In short order, Bucky had reduced her blanket to large square pieces, and the medic got a pot of water on. The tent was soon filled with steam and the overpowering smell of boiling wool. They took turns wrapping the sodden, steaming pieces of wool in dry cloth and laying them on the captain’s chest, trying to use the heat to bring new blood into the area to wash out the infection in his lungs.

“His heart is racing,” the nurse warned, face grim. Steve’s heartbeat hadn’t been good since early on in his fight with the gas, and the medic suspected one side of his heart had been distended out of shape in the struggle to pump poorly oxygenated blood to the rest of his body. Now, with the fever and the added heat, his heart rate was dangerously fast. They kept a cold compress over his forehead, and another over his laboring heart, trying to slow bloodflow in those areas as much as possible.

It was a long night. Steve’s cough turned deep, and he spit up thick green phlegm that was streaked with old, dark blood. At least it didn’t seem to be acidic any more. Peggy washed his face in cold water and re-dressed his poor eyes.

The steam and the heat treatments helped ease Steve’s breathing, but didn’t help his fever, which climbed steadily until the medic thought the thermometer must be broken. When they couldn’t get the fever to go down by morning, Bucky and the medic turned Peggy out of the tent and gave the captain a tepid bath. Peggy hadn’t been thrilled at being sent away.

“I was trained as a nurse,” she insisted. “He’s not got anything I haven’t seen before.”

Bucky only shrugged. “You know that,” he said. “And I know that, and we both know that if it were me, I’d sooner have a pretty dame give me a bath than any old medic. But this is Steve, and he’d be embarrassed, even if he’s out of his head.”

It was true. So Peggy sat outside the tent in the bleak light of a cloudy day and swallowed some food without tasting it while she listened to the grunts and splashes of two men wrestling a delirious super soldier into a washtub. If they’d been any closer to civilization, there might have been a doctor, a hospital, at least a real bed. But they were still stuck out here at the far end of nowhere, and available resources were terribly slim.

“How’s he doing?”

She was too tired to start with surprise at the colonel’s voice. Instead she only blinked at him, only just then realizing that she’d never turned in her report the night before. “Delirious. He’s developed broncho-pneumonia.”

The colonel nodded, absorbing the news without comment. Then, “get some sleep, Agent,” and he was gone, retreating toward the command tent.

They both knew she wouldn’t.

* * *

“Wait, he’s not better yet?” 

Peggy looked up at Howard’s voice, swiping strands of hair out of her face with a sigh as she straightened. His dismay would have been almost comical under any other circumstances, but this wasn’t a laughing situation. 

“It wasn’t anything your antidote could have fixed,” she assured him. “All the damage left him vulnerable to a secondary infection.”

Howard hovered in the door of the tent, eyeing Steve with worry as the captain tossed his head and muttered indistinctly. The inventor had crashed after administering the alkaline gas, and had clearly only just woken up, his hair sticking straight up off his head. Peggy wondered vaguely where he’d found to sleep. 

“He’ll get over it though, right?” Howard asked, like a child seeking assurance. “I mean, the serum was supposed to make it so he wouldn’t get sick anymore.”

The medic pushed past, nearly knocking Stark over. He carried another steaming piece of wool. Howard wrinkled his nose at the smell.

“His system was compromised from the gas,” Peggy explained, stepping out of the tent to give the medic room as he and Bucky started giving Steve another round of fomentations. “But he’s beaten pneumonia before. We have no reason to think that he won’t again.” Except for the fact that his lungs were still raw, and who knew what damage had been done to his heart or other internal organs by the acid, oxygen deprivation, and constant strain.

The aftermath of a gas attack could be more deadly than the initial symptoms.

But only time would answer those questions. In the meantime, she tried to keep the inventor in good spirits. Eventually he became far too much underfoot for even her tolerance, so she ordered him off with some of the Commandos to inventory the contents of the enemy lab.

Steve’s fever raged for the rest of the day, breath wheezing in and out of his congested, damaged lungs. When he wasn’t tossing and turning in delirium, he lay limp as a cooked noodle, barely possessing the strength to acknowledge when he was spoken to. Bucky and the medic bathed him twice more in an attempt to get his temperature down. Peggy raided his pack for fresh undershirts, and between them they worked to continue the hot fomentations and change out the sweat-soaked bedding. 

“I’ll stay with him,” she told Barnes at last. “Why don’t you get something to eat? I’ll call you if there’s a change.”

Barnes was weaving on his feet with sheer weariness. His shirt and pants were wet with splashed water from the latest bath, clinging to him and making him shiver in the cool breeze.

“I’m okay,” he told her, but she insisted. She’d had rest and food more recently than he had, by her count.

“We don’t need both of you getting sick. Get into dry things. It’ll be fine.”

Wearily, Bucky nodded. He threw a last glance at his friend, and then turned to go without another word. His steps were heavy, uncertain, and Peggy suddenly wondered when the last time he’d slept had been. The man must be near the end of his rope, both physically and emotionally.

Taking a seat on the edge of Steve’s cot, she reached out and laid a hand lightly on his burning forehead, checking his temperature. To her surprise, he leaned into her touch.

“Mama?” he asked, the word so hoarse that she could barely make it out. 

Thrown, Peggy faltered. “Steve, it’s Peggy,” she told him, but he didn’t seem to hear her.    


“Mama?” he begged again. The compress over his face slid aside as he tried to turn his head toward her - his reddened, irritated eyes squinted sightlessly against the dim light. 

Peggy’s heart throbbed painfully. Bowing her head, she accepted the tribute meant for another woman - the mother who, if she was anything like the son she had raised, would even now be willing to give anything in heaven or earth for the chance to be here comforting her tortured, suffering boy. 

“I'm here,” she promised, holding her voice steady by sheer force of will. 

He shuddered all down his body as he turned onto his side and curled closer to her, arm thrown around her waist, hands grasping at the material of her uniform, his hot head burrowed into her lap as he sought comfort from his dead mother. “Hurts, Ma,” he rasped softly between two labored breaths - and suddenly Peggy was seeing the little boy he once had been, patiently bearing pain and illness. 

With great care, she wiped his brow with a cool cloth before carding her fingers back through his hair and settling his head more comfortably against her. “I know, my darling,” she told him tenderly, the endearment springing unbidden to her lips, her tears dropping onto the bandage as she readjusted it over his poor eyes. “I know.”

A sound made Peggy turn to see Bucky standing in the doorway, mouth thinned into a straight line, emotion struggling in his face. He nodded briefly at her, but his attention was focused on his friend - and for a minute he looked very old and tired. Peggy straightened her spine, ready to rise, but Steve’s face furrowed and he clung to her, labored breathing becoming more agitated. 

“Mama,” he wheezed, “ _ Mama _ , don’t go.” Another cough racked his frame, threatening to tear him in two. Peggy’s heart broke as she wiped his face again and struggled to wrestle his heavy bulk back against his pillow. 

“Shhh,” she soothed him, and dropped the softest of kisses on his damp forehead. It seemed a motherly thing to do, and she couldn’t bear to leave him without some form of comfort. “I’ll come back, I promise. Bucky needs me for a few minutes, that’s all.”

“No,” Bucky said, his hand coming down on her shoulder. His eyes filled with a softness that she had rarely seen coming from him. “No - stay with him. If he thinks you’re…” he broke off, swallowed visibly, and turned toward the darkest corner of the tent, swiping one sleeve roughly across his eyes. “Stay with him.”

So she stayed with him. 

And two hours after the sun went down, his head pillowed in Peggy’s lap, Steve Rogers’ fever finally broke.

* * *

For the second night in a row, Peggy and Bucky sat up with the captain, neither one willing to leave him even though the medic had promised to take their place. Peggy pulled a blanket around her shoulders. It wasn’t hers, but she was too worn out to wonder where it had come from. Bucky had one too, but he kept it folded across his knees as though he barely noticed it was there. His eyes were riveted to his best friend’s face, half-covered with a new oxygen face-tent they’d finally wrestled onto him now that the delirium was past. Probably he was counting Steve’s breaths. Peggy knew she was.

“You said he’d been through worse?” She finally asked, breaking the silence between them. Her camp stool was on uneven ground; she shifted, tugging it a little closer to Bucky’s so all four legs would be steady.

Bucky shook his head. He didn’t say anything though, not for a long time. When he did speak, his voice was rough.

“Not this bad. This is probably his closest call.”

Peggy looked over at Steve. He appeared to have dropped into a light doze; she lowered her voice. “Probably?”

Even in the dim light, she could see Bucky’s jaw tighten.

“He was such a sick kid,” he breathed at last, voice equally low. “His mom was pretty much the only thing that kept him alive. He loved her so much. We almost lost him in ‘32, but she sat up with him every night for three weeks and nursed him back.” He chuckled - an almost inaudible sound in the darkness. “You think  _ Steve’s _ stubborn - you should’ve met his ma.”

Peggy tugged the blanket a bit tighter. “Tell me about her?” She was undeniably curious about the woman who had raised the man she cared about so much. He’d never talked much about his mother, but she knew the woman had passed away from tuberculosis.

Bucky shook his head - not in denial, but more in thought. “She was a little thing,” he said finally. “I think I was taller than her when I was fourteen, but you wouldn’t have known it from the way she carried herself. Strong, smart. Didn’t take flack from anybody.” He eyed her for a second. “Think she would’ve liked you.”

Peggy got the feeling she would have liked Mrs. Rogers as well. “I imagine he took it hard when she died?”

“Yeah.” Bucky went back to counting Steve’s breaths, and for a minute Peggy did too. She was pretty sure they were coming more easily now, though the dim light and the oxygen mask made it hard to tell if his lips were still blue or not.

“It nearly killed him,” Bucky said suddenly. Peggy mentally floundered before realizing he was still talking about Mrs. Rogers’ death. “They wanted to put her in some slummy sanitarium to die, but Steve wouldn’t let her go. Nursed her himself for months. Saved up every penny he had toward a trip to the country. Better air or something out there, he said. Knew he didn’t have a prayer of saving that much, but tried anyway.”

Peggy bit her lip. She wasn’t all that familiar with American geography, but was vaguely aware that Brooklyn was nowhere near the country. “She didn’t make it there?”

Bucky shook his head. “Had to spend it all on medicine in the end.” His eyes tightened again. “It’s an ugly way to die.”

In his sleep, Steve shifted and coughed again - a racking sound that had more strength behind it than any of his previous wheezing. The two fell silent until after their captain had settled again, one hand hanging over the edge of the cot. Peggy found herself wondering if his experience now was anything like his mother’s. What a cruel irony that both his parents had died coughing their lives away, and now Steve faced the danger of doing the same. 

“He lost something when she died,” Bucky continued, his whisper barely audible now. “Light went right out of him. He’d always been a sober kid, but it really did a number on him.” In the dark, she saw him shoot her another look, and his voice changed. “But the way he looks at you now, Carter - I see that light in his face again.”

Totally taken aback by the turn the conversation had taken, Peggy straightened abruptly in her seat. Any shreds of wool that might have gathered around her sleep-deprived wits were suddenly gone.

Beside her, Bucky grinned, teeth a white flash. He didn’t continue the conversation, busying himself with unfolding the blanket over his knees and tugging it around his shoulders as well.

“I’ll sit the next watch on him. Get some sleep, Mogs,” he told her - and for once, she didn’t lash out at the nickname he’d given her, a tentative warmth growing in her chest.

Because yes, she cared for Steve, and she knew he cared for her as well, but somehow this conversation felt like a seal of approval from the captain’s oldest friend - and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Exhausted though she was, it was a while before Peggy Carter’s eyes finally drifted closed.

* * *

Steve woke up with a jerk just after sunrise, knocking the cloth off of his eyes with the abrupt movement. Bucky’s watch had ended an hour before, and he was asleep in his camp chair, snoring sporadically - so it was Peggy who scooted to Steve’s side and laid a hand on his shoulder as he tried to sit up.

“Shhh,” she whispered, pleased to see that his eyes were looking clearer and his extremities had lost the blue tinge. “It’s all right - just lay back.”

He did, chest heaving at even that slight exertion. His breath still wheezed horribly through his damaged windpipe and lungs, but for the first time in days he wasn’t coughing up phlegm or worse. His white lips moved beneath the mask, but the words that came out were a choked, unintelligible rasp, and he winced with pain. Peggy shifted her hand to his cheek, and he stilled, squinting up. With a slight shock of joy, Peggy realized he could see her again. The damage to his eyes hadn’t been permanent. 

“You’re safe, Steve,” she assured him, smiling down into his face, fairly giddy with relief. “We’re all safe. Don’t try to talk.” 

His shoulders relaxed, and she knew she had correctly guessed the source of his worry. Always more concerned about others than himself - that was her Steve.

_ Her Steve. _

Peggy retrieved her hand abruptly, but then settled it somewhat inconsistently on his arm, needing the contact even though this wasn’t really something they did. “Would you like water?”

He nodded. Still weak and shaky, he didn’t protest as she removed the mask, raised his head in the curve of her arm, and held the glass to his lips. The relief in his face showed clearly, and his eyes fell closed as he sipped the water slowly.

When the cup was empty, Peggy set it aside and helped him lay back down again. He shuddered through another racking cough, but didn’t spit up anything after, so she decided to consider it a good sign.

“Try to get some more sleep?” she suggested softly, and he nodded. He didn’t fight as she slipped the oxygen face-tent back over his face. When she tried to pull away, though, he reached out and caught her hand. The look of appeal in his reddened eyes was as plain as the word he tried to mouth -  _ stay _ .

Peggy’s heart turned over in her chest. Then, scooting her camp stool closer with one foot, she settled beside him, turning her hand in his to clasp it loosely back.

“I’m here, Steve,” she assured him. Briefly, she wondered if he still thought it was his mother by his side, but decided it didn’t really matter. “I’m here.”

His poor, blistered lips twitched into a brief smile, and then his eyes fluttered closed. Peggy watched his face, her shoulders finally loosening as it became apparent that he was sleeping soundly again. He was pale, and looked like he’d been shoved through a sieve and then dragged through death itself, but to her eyes Steve Rogers had never looked more beautiful.

He was alive, and clearly healing. It was nothing short of a miracle.

“Thank you,” she breathed, her lips soundlessly shaping the simple words filling her heart. “Thank you for letting him live today.”

And then, at that precise moment, she realized Bucky was no longer snoring.

When she turned her head to look over at him, Bucky’s eyes were open, and he was watching her. He raised a slow eyebrow, and then eyed their clasped hands pointedly. Thankfully, he didn’t comment, though a twinkle sprang into his eye that hadn’t been there since this disastrous mission had started. Instead, he said, “Steve wake up?”

Peggy nodded, and refused to let herself flush, wondering how long he’d been watching. “Briefly. I’m not sure if he knew me, but I got him to take some water.”

That quick, bright grin flashed across Bucky’s face again, and he shot a knowing glance at Peggy’s hand in Steve’s. “Oh, he definitely knew you this time,” he said. “Definitely.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your kind reviews on this difficult story! It’s not my normal area, so I appreciate your generosity. Also, my favorite part of the story is in this chapter (Steve calling for his mother). I almost cried when I wrote it, so if you liked it too, let me know. :)
> 
> I’m afraid I rather went overboard on medical-ness in this chapter. Howard’s alkaline gas treatment is completely fictional, though after writing it, I did find a 1917 report of experimental ammonia inhalations, and a 2013 study of inhaling bicarbonate of soda. Both indicated some relief, but neither was conclusive, and to this day, there remains no known cure for chlorine gas inhalation (most of Steve’s symptoms are taken from chlorine gas). Please don’t try inhaling chemicals at home, by the way. Bad idea.
> 
> The treatments for pneumonia are consistent with 1940’s medical knowledge. WWII was set in a unique time, where penicillin was just making its debut, but older forms of treatment still persisted. I had the opportunity to sit in on an interview with an elderly WWII doctor and nurse. They explained that while penicillin was used when it was available, they didn’t always have it, and so fell back on other treatments, such as those mentioned in this chapter (fomentations, steam treatments, water baths).
> 
> One chapter left!
> 
> Sources:  
The Home Physician and Guide to Health, 1940  
Medical Diseases of the War, Arthur Hurst, 1917  
StatPearls, “Chlorine Gas Toxicity,” Morim and Guldner, 2019


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_ Pulmonary or choking agents cause an inflammatory reaction[.] They can be life-threatening if inhaled. No specific antidote exists. Treatment is mainly supportive. _

\- Morim and Guldner, 2019

* * *

In light of Steve’s improvement, Phillips gave the order to prepare to move out. He wanted to get away from the derelict Hydra base and back behind Allied lines as soon as possible, both for the safety of everyone, and so Steve could have a checkup at a proper hospital. 

Even without the checkup though, the medic guessed Steve would be fine. Since the acid had been neutralized, the serum was finally able to start healing the damaged lung tissue. It would take some time for his lungs to get back to normal, and he would need to take it easy for the next while while they figured out if his distended heart would heal as well, but the doctor had no reason to believe the captain wouldn’t continue to improve.

“With the serum, we really don’t know what will happen or how long it will take,” he confessed, shrugging helplessly. “But I’m optimistic.”

It had been an intense few days, filled with pain and suffering and sleepless worry, and Peggy was just glad to move on from it. Warren’s body would be buried with full honors. 

Steve’s situation was another matter altogether. For any other man, this would have meant the end of the war. He would have been sent home. But Peggy wasn’t naive enough to think that would happen to the captain. Despite the damage and suffering he’d been through, he healed quickly. The brass would send him straight back out again because they could. 

And Steve wouldn’t complain. He’d go back out, and fight until something else took him out, or the war ended.

It was brutally unfair. But it was the reality of war.

With the camp packing up, getting ready to move out first thing the following morning, Peggy finally tore herself from the captain’s side and went back to her regular duties, only to find herself waking up a half hour later with her cheek pressed into the pages of her report and a very incredulous colonel staring down at her. He’d sent her summarily away, so she’d reluctantly curled up in the back of a truck and taken what felt like a positively inexcusable nap.

When she finally woke, disoriented but feeling slightly more like a human being, she went to find Howard.

She’d expected to find him cocky and grinning, jubilant over this latest success. Instead, she found him alone in an empty tent, staring down a sheet of paper as though it were an opponent.

“What is it, Howard?” she asked, and he jumped visibly, only relaxing when he saw her in the doorway.

“Sheesh, warn a fellow,” he half-complained. “How’s Cap?”

Peggy felt her cheeks warm. “Doing much better.” She stepped closer, leaning one hip against Stark’s folding table. “Thank you, Howard.”

Howard grinned, but then his eye caught the paper on the table and some of the joy went out of his face. “Don’t thank me yet, Peg.”

Curious, Peggy turned to look at the paper, but she barely had time to see more than a scribbled jumble of letters and numbers before Stark’s hand dropped over it. 

“It’s nothing,” he said in response to her raised eyebrow. “I - it’s just a little something to go in Phillips’ report.”

Something cold settled around Peggy’s heart. 

“It’s the formula, isn’t it?” she asked. “The formula to the poison gas?”

Howard nodded, reluctantly. “We could develop it,” he said slowly, the words sounding somehow flat. “Develop it, discharge it behind enemy lines. America never signed the Geneva Protocol, so we wouldn’t be breaking any international treaties. We’d win the war in days, Peggy. _ Days _.” 

Peggy slowly clasped her hands together, the implications of that little slip of paper careening around in her head. She thought of Steve’s suffering - of Warren who had never stood the ghost of a chance - of her uncle who had been scarred so terribly back in the Great War.

And then she thought of all the lives that were daily being lost in this great struggle. Of the men, women, and children on both sides, casualties of war, soldiers and civilians.

It was too, too big. Too great of a decision for her to make.

“At what cost?” She whispered. “Every nation will try to develop it, if it’s used even once. It’s too terrible, Howard.”

Howard went back to glaring at the paper.

“It’s science, Peggy,” he said quietly. “That’s how science works.”

* * *

That evening, Peggy handed the completed report to Phillips, as he sat beside the small fire they’d dared to light. She stood by, watching as he paged through it. 

Phillips stopped dead when he reached the little slip of paper in Howard’s handwriting, backed by the pages in German they’d retrieved from the base. He didn’t say anything, but his face suddenly fell into deep furrows, highlighted by the flickering light of the small campfire they’d dared to light. He looked very old and very tired, and Peggy was reminded of Phillips’ past. This wasn’t his first time as a soldier - he’d served before, during the Great War.

He knew all about what poison gas looked like when used as a weapon of mass destruction.

It was the only reason she’d been able to put that report in his hands, leave the final decision to him. He was the only man in the company who could have made it.

At length, Phillips looked up and met her eye.

“You typed up a copy of this report?” he wanted to know.

Peggy shook her head. “Not yet, Colonel.”

Phillips nodded and looked down again at the papers in his hands. “That will be all, Agent. Good night.”

She looked back one last time before entering her tent, but the Colonel was still sitting where she’d left him, bent over the papers, reading them in the light of the small fire.

* * *

The _ giftgas _ formula would never make it back to headquarters.

“Lost,” was all Colonel Phillips would say, something grim and hard around his jaw. The ashes of last night’s campfire had been stomped down and carefully buried, and Peggy had the distinct feeling that nobody would ever find those particular papers again.

“I’m pretty sure I could…” Stark started, but Phillips cut him off shortly. “No, son. You couldn’t.”

Howard blinked, but whether he was more surprised at being told he couldn’t do something, or at being called “son,” Peggy wasn’t entirely sure.

“Haven’t you got that experimental engine you’re working on?” She asked quickly, before Stark’s surprise could turn into indignation. 

He stared at her, and then slapped his own forehead. “Of course, of course! My baby’s sitting back there just waiting for me to come back to her. She’s a beauty, Pegs - a real sweetheart. Got to pack up and get back to her right away. You’ll send word if you need me again, won’t you?”

He spun on one heel and was gone before she could answer, racing past a bemused Bucky Barnes who was just then approaching.

“Was he talking about a dame, or about his engine?” Barnes greeted her, jerking a thumb toward the inventor’s retreating back.

Peggy laughed. “Possibly both - I’ve no idea.”

He fell into step beside her as they crossed the camp. All around them, the place was bustling as people packed up. It was time to move out, time to travel on to their next assignment.

“How is he this morning?” Peggy asked. 

Bucky shrugged. The line of blisters high on his cheek from the acid Steve had coughed up was already fading, faster than the similar marks Peggy had on her wrist. “Sitting up, eating soup and trying to sweet-talk the nurse into letting him get up and get dressed instead of ride in the medic truck. Still sounds like a frog croaking, but they say that’ll pass when his throat finishes healing.”

Peggy nodded. Steve’s larynx had been stripped and severely damaged from all the abuse it had taken - it was no wonder he sounded like a frog. The only wonder was that he could make a sound at all.

Still, Steve Rogers was always one to beat the odds. She had the feeling he always would be.

“I’d better go check on him before he makes a run for it,” she decided, bending her steps toward the medic tent. “And Barnes - “ she paused, looking up at her captain’s best friend. He had kept her sane through this whole ordeal. “Thank you.”

He looked down at her, grinned, then winked cheekily. “Anytime, Carter. Anytime.”

* * *

The convoy rolled out.

Steve rode in the ambulance after all, with as much comfort as they could give him, which wasn’t much at all. The medic and nurse had bundled him up as warmly as possible, though it wasn’t all that cold outside, trying to prevent him from catching a chill. 

It was a very dull and uncomfortable ride. His eyes were better, but still not healed enough to read. He’d hacked up the last of the liquid and phlegm from his lungs that morning, and now just struggled with a dry, nagging cough that tugged painfully at the strained muscles in his chest and abdomen. Lying down only worsened it, and right now he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. All morning, he’d been sitting upright to ease the cough and try to get some sleep. 

At least the serum was healing him quickly. Back home, pneumonia took him weeks to get over. This time around, it was clearing up in a matter of days. 

Hopefully by the time he had to face the enemy again, he’d be back in fighting condition.

Just as he was about to drift off for the tenth time, a movement at the opening of the ambulance caught his attention, and the next minute Peggy Carter hoisted herself into the slowly moving vehicle. 

Steve’s heart thumped unevenly against his ribs. He blamed it on the distention it had suffered. Never mind that he’d felt the muscle pulling back into place all day. It would probably be healed in a week, he figured.

“Agent Carter,” he rasped, and then made a face. Surely he couldn’t sound as bad as all that.

She came over and sat on the empty cot opposite. “I’ve brought you some water,” she said, offering him a canteen. “The medic says you’re to drink as much as possible to flush out any poison left in your system.”

Given that the medic and driver were only three feet away, and that no wall separated them from the interior of the ambulance, Steve didn’t say what he thought of the medic’s orders. He also didn’t mention his own canteen was nearly full. Instead he merely accepted the canteen she offered and took a long pull at it. Immediately he spluttered into another cough, getting himself very wet in the process.

“Sorry,” he gasped when he could breathe again.

Peggy didn’t seem phased. Then again, she had seen him cough up considerably worse over the last few days. “How are you feeling?”

Steve nodded. “Swell,” he said. He still felt cold and shaky, his lungs still ached with every breath, and his eyes were still sore and blurry, but those would fade with time. Even with his impaired eyesight, he could see Peggy’s doubt over his assessment of himself, so he changed the subject. “Been meaning to ask.” He paused for breath and chose his words carefully, “The formula for the gas - did it end up in the report?”

Peggy shook her head. “Colonel Phillips misplaced it,” she explained calmly, and something tight and sick in Steve’s heart unraveled in relief at her words. He sank back against the wall of the ambulance, smothering a new coughing fit between his teeth. 

“Wanted to thank you,” he rasped - then shook his head in frustration as his abused voice gave out. He tried again. “I hear you were the one who found the cure.”

That was not entirely true. Peggy raised her chin. “Barnes is a terrible fibber,” she retorted. “He’s the one who found the papers, and Stark synthesized the antidote.”

“And I’ve already thanked them.” Steve paused, cleared his throat painfully, and then tried again in a hoarse whisper. “But I wanted to thank you too. You stayed by me, you…” he trailed off. Words weren’t coming easily at the moment, and he couldn’t think what to say anyway. He didn’t know how to begin to thank her for everything she’d done. So instead he reached to lay his hand over hers where it lay on the edge of the cot. Her wrist was bandaged - he knew he had given her the blisters the bandage covered, and it hurt to know he had caused her pain. “Thank you, Peggy.”

She hesitated, just long enough that he started thinking he’d presumed too much - and then her lips curled up in the warm smile that made his heart do traitorous things again, and she turned her hand to squeeze his briefly.

Then they both remembered the medic and driver just a few feet away, who were no doubt listening to everything with interest, and the moment passed. Peggy retrieved her hand demurely, and he let her go.

”Can I get you anything, Captain?” she asked, already preparing to depart. He nodded, and took another drink.

“Paper?” he asked, “and something to write with?”

She hesitated, raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Can you see well enough to write?”

Reluctantly, he shook his head and took another swallow of water, hoping to get more sound out of his voice. “Getting there. Wanted to write Warren’s folks though.”

“I believe the colonel has already sent a condolence letter,” Peggy said carefully. 

Steve gestured in exasperation. He didn’t have enough voice to explain that a standard condolence letter wasn’t enough. Warren had been a good soldier, albeit they’d barely known each other. He’d had parents, a kid brother, probably a sweetheart back home. “His folks deserve more,” was all he could manage.

She looked at him levelly, and he saw in her eyes the moment when she understood.

“I’ll get the paper,” she agreed, and moved toward the entrance. “You mustn’t strain your eyes though. Let me know if you need me to take dictation.”

Steve thought about it. He figured he might take her up on her offer. After all, time with Agent Carter was hard to come by.

“Bucky was right,” he whispered hoarsely, just as Peggy reached the rear of the ambulance.

“Mmm? About what?”

A grin tugged at the corners of Steve’s mouth, but he bit it back and managed a perfectly angelic expression. “My mother would’ve liked you a lot.”

She stared in surprise. To his shock, Steve realized she was actually blushing, the color in her cheeks mounting at the realization he’d heard at least part of the conversation between her and Bucky. He felt his own face heat in response.

“I think I’d have liked her too,” Peggy confessed at last, so softly that he barely heard it - and then with a small smile that made his heart skip again, she slipped out of the ambulance and was gone.

After Peggy departed, Steve leaned back, looking down at the canteen of water in his hands. He thought about the other part of their conversation he’d heard while drifting in and out, clinging to the voices of his friends like a lifeline. 

_ “...the way he looks at you ... I see that light in his face again…” _

The sentiment itself wasn’t a surprise. He’d felt that light in his heart, slowly but surely unfurling and bringing more joy and hope with every day that passed. He just hadn’t realized it showed. Could Peggy see it too? Somehow he hoped she could - and if he was really, supremely lucky, maybe she had something similar in her own heart. 

After all, not every guy was fortunate enough to know a girl who would stick by him to death’s door and back. And to have his oldest friend approve of that girl - well, that was an added gift that he hadn’t expected.

Steve Rogers drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

_ Poison gas may never be used again as an agent of destruction, but only if wars cease. _

_ \- Aldred Scott Warthin, 1919 _

* * *

THE END

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! And it is done! Happy New Year, dear friends! Thank you so much for your support and for being the best readers a girl could ask for. :D
> 
> Poison gas has never again been used as a weapon to the extent it was during WWI. The horrors stuck long enough in the minds of men that when WWII started, both sides agreed to wait to see if the other side would use it first.
> 
> In the meantime, both the Germans and the Americans set chemists to making new gases, testing gas on volunteers, and stockpiling. The Japanese, who had not signed the Geneva Protocol, did use poison gas to some extent, and America (who hadn't signed it either) is known to have shipped at least one boatload of mustard gas as far as Italy where it was bombed by German submarines, the freed gas killing soldiers and civilians in a nearby town. Despite the fears, however, neither side ended up using poison gas as a main weapon.
> 
> During my research, I was dismayed to discover that there are still four countries in the world who possess stockpiles of poison gas left over from the Cold War - and America is one of them. In fact, until a few years ago, one of the larger stockpiles was kept very near my childhood home. As per international agreement, America is systematically and safely destroying their poison gas reserves. They estimate it will take until 2023. 
> 
> Sources used in this story:  
"Medical Diseases of the War" by Arthur Hurst, M.A., MD (Oxon), FRCP, 1917  
“The Medical Aspects of Mustard Gas Poisoning,” by Aldred Scott Warthin, 1919  
“Adjustment of the Service Gas Mask” Official Training Film, War Department, produced by The Signal Corps in collaboration` with the Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service, 1941  
StatPearls, “Chlorine Gas Toxicity,” Morim and Guldner, 2019


End file.
